September 29th

Hi, It's hard getting back to work after the weekend retreat at Warrington. For those that didn't make it, we arrived at the Hatherly (the Kings High School "classroom by the sea") in pouring rain but soon had the place toasty warm and David's full programme of meditation, yoga and acupressure instruction meant 5 oclock was upon us before we knew it. The potluck hamburger dinner with creamy desserts was a gourmand's delight and helped fuel a late night drumming session round the blazing oildrum fire. Sunday was warmish and sunny and allowed us to meditate and do Qigong and yoga outside, which was great. The only problem is I am now so stiff that lowering myself into a chair is a little painful and I walk as though I spent the whole weekend in the saddle. There are obviously some crucial muscle groups I need to do a bit more work on. Sasha is also feeling a bit at a loose end. She did appreciate all the attention and ball throwing.

Anyway, down to Bioscience. Today you should be finishing off the Digestive system and thinking of moving onto Unit 5: The Blood and its Components. This is an appropriate unit for what should be your holidays (sorry!) as you will find you have done much of it before. So concentrate on expanding your knowledge of the functions of the different sorts of blood cells, as well as where and how they are formed, how long they live and what happens to them when their time is up. You will find that blood clotting is dealt with in some detail as well as blood groups.
You have another week to finish the Digestive System Blackboard quiz which closes next Monday night.

Some people have been asking me about Test 2 which is on Friday October 17th. It will cover Units 3, 4 and 5: The Endocrine and Digestive Systems and the Blood and like the first test is worth 15% of your final mark.

I have just been told of a fun website that may help you with remembering those new words. It is called Wordle and is at http://wordle.net/ It produces "Wordclouds" of any document you copy in to it (try doing an 'edit" and "select all" on the print version of the notes). The most common words used are in the largest script (you can edit out "and" and "the" etc.) and you could print out the "cloud" to put it on your loo wall! Enjoy playing.

Have a good week,
Cheers Ruth